Category Archive: writing

May 13 2013

[meta] On Tone, the Policing Thereof, and What It Is I Do Here

So my “Why You Shouldn’t Tell That Random Girl On The Street That She’s Hot” post went a little bit viral and I’m still responding to comments on it. One thing that has come up a lot are guys telling me that they basically agree with me, but that they are very concerned that the …

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May 05 2013

[blogathon] What I’ve Learned From Blogging

This is the fourth post in my SSA blogathon, and another reader request. Don’t forget to donate! I’ve been blogging in some form or another for ten years. Since I was 12. Did they even have blogs back then? Apparently! But I only started this blog a little less than four years ago, and it …

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Dec 10 2012

“Home”

This week I learned that depression and writer’s block together is a scary thing, as writing is my primary way of alleviating depression. Then I realized that the reason I couldn’t write was because I was refusing to write the piece that was trying to come out. When I finally let myself “feel the feels,” …

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Aug 17 2012

Depression Personified

This is a work of fiction. Trigger warning for depression and abuse. And again. Everything starts to swirl in my mind again, tears pool in my eyes. Everything about me is shit–my writing, my activism, my appearance, my personality. I cry everywhere–in the office, in the bathroom, on the train, in bed. Just yesterday I …

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Aug 12 2012

A Reflection on Three Years of Blogging

Three years ago today, I inaugurated this blog with its first post. At one point in it, I explained that I’d moved to WordPress.com and started a new blog because of issues with my previous host, and I wrote this: I thought about buying my own domain and not messing around with that stuff anymore, …

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Aug 03 2012

"Don't Feed the Trolls": Reexamining a Tired Maxim

Allow me to get meta here for a moment. I’ve noticed that a very common response to nasty internet comments is to repeat the mantra, “Don’t feel the trolls.” It’s become “common knowledge” that you should ignore mean-spirited (as opposed to simply critical) comments on the internet, especially if you’re the one they’re addressed to, …

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Jul 16 2012

It Happened Here (Or, How to Hate a City)

It’s been three years and nothing’s changed. I still cry every time I leave home, whether I’ve been there for a weekend or a summer. I’m still the awkward girl with no sense of decorum who cries on the Megabus. I still feel worse and worse as I get closer and closer to my hateful …

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Jul 02 2012

When I Knew It Was Over

When I was a little kid, my favorite dreams were the ones in which I got something new–a toy I’d been wanting, some really cool gadget. (Kids are acquisitive that way.) I would wake up grasping for my new possession and feeling a tremendous sense of injustice at the fact that I couldn’t keep it …

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May 27 2012

Anonymity and Mental Illness

The stigma of mental illness has many negative consequences, such as decreased access to employment and housing, barriers to seeking treatment, and many broken friendships and relationships. What it also does, unfortunately, is make it much harder for people who’ve suffered from mental illness to speak about it publicly, using their real names. I’ve been …

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Apr 27 2012

Setting the Record Straight

Note: On April 24, the Daily Northwestern published an opinion column that included a backhanded and (in my opinion) unfair reference to me and my blog–namely, to my Markwell post. I wrote the following letter to the editor in response. To the editor: In his Tuesday column, Peter Larson discussed the response to Cru’s Markwell campaign …

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